Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Satanic Panics,” a look at waves of fear of demonic activity as an American tradition, with Luxx Mishou, cultural historian and former instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy and area community colleges.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/nv-satanic-panics .]

The 1980s found the United States gripped by fear of Satanic cults targeting children. They were believed to be corrupting young ones in daycare centers and tempting teens through subliminal messages on heavy metal albums or through the quiet inclusion of demonic rituals in role-playing games. Satanic serial killers supposedly stalked the suburbs. Doctors helped patients uncover what were claimed to be repressed memories of ritualistic satanic abuse.

Parents, police, and politicians were urged to protect impressionable youths from both moral and physical danger. With Satanic cults deemed to be a real and material threat, it was a frightening time for everyone, including those who suddenly came under suspicion for doing evil deeds.

Then, suddenly, it all faded from public consciousness, just as surely as did eighties fads such mullet haircuts, leg warmers, and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Why did it all start? Why did it stop? And has this happened before or since?

Hear such questions tackled by Luxx Mishou, a cultural historian and media specialist who has long researched the devious and villainous in cultural artifacts. She’ll discuss moral panics as a longstanding cultural tradition, with each new one stemming from fear of cultural shifts and shaped by the time and place where it occurred. Among the panics we’ll look into are the Red Scare of the 1950s and the public response to the gruesome 1969 murders committed by the Manson Family.

Delving into the 1980s panic, Mishou will describe how it began with the 1980 publication of psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder’s memoir Michelle Remembers, detailing the suppressed memories of ritualistic abuse reportedly suffered by a patient. As that book quickly became a best seller, its ideas saturated American culture. A California daycare center became the focus of a three-year investigation, followed by three years of trials, based on allegations that its owner had engaged in secret ritualistic abuse of the children in its care.

Mishou will lead you through the media that convinced the public that devil worshipers were among them, and she’ll talk about how reactions to imagined threats can have very real social costs. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Wink, Nod, Kill,” a look at implicit calls for violence and other speech that leads to bloodshed and threatens democracy, with Kurt Braddock, assistant professor of communications at American University and expert on terrorism.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/wink-nod-kill .[

Over the last decade, President Donald Trump and many of his allies have used language that implicitly advocates for the use of violence without directing it outright. From telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” to suggesting that legal acts of Democratic lawmakers should be “punishable by death,” Trump has consistently suggested that violence is a viable means of addressing political grievances.

Support for political violence—implicit or explicit—goes beyond the sort of spirited debate and disagreement upon which the American experiment was founded. It represents a gray area in the connection between violent language and violent acts, an area that Kurt Braddock has spent years studying.

Learn about research on the connection between real bloodshed and coded language, dogwhistles, and implicit calls for violence with Dr. Braddock, who has conducted research on communication and terrorism for several national and international organizations, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of State, and the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism.

Professor Braddock will give his audience a firm grounding in the concept of “stochastic terrorism,” or political violence spawned by vague calls to violent action. Tapping into decades of research on communication and decision-making and accounts of specific violent acts inspired by implicit orders, he’ll show us that the threat posed by implicit calls to violence is real.

He’ll discuss whether implicit calls for violence represent a “new” form of political communication protected by the First Amendment, and he’ll describe the real-world dangers posed by these kinds of statements.

Among the questions Dr. Braddock will tackle: Why do politicians use this language if they can reasonably assume that someone may be motivated by it to hurt someone else? Perhaps most importantly, what can we do about it, especially given the sacrosanctity of the First Amendment?

His talk promises to give you a much more sophisticated understanding of recent events and a clearer sense of what might lie ahead. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Right-wing pundit and podcaster Steve Bannon routinely uses violent rhetoric. (Photo by Nordiske Mediedager / Creative Commons. )

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Trump, Your Rights, and Resistance,” an overview of the legal landscape in the District of Columbia one year into Donald Trump’s second administration, with Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of D.C. and lecturer on law and Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Civil Rights at Harvard Law School.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-rights-resistance .]

Our nation looks a lot different a year after President Trump took office in January 2025. What has actually happened—and what does it mean for our rights?

Get an informed breakdown on the civil rights and civil liberties issues that have defined the past year with Scott Michelman, a legal scholar who last January gave an excellent talk on the legal guardrails potentially checking Trump’s actions.

He’ll discuss what has been happening with immigration policy, criminal justice reform, domestic military deployment, discrimination, and threats to free speech.

He’ll identify troubling patterns, explain where advocates have successfully pushed back in the courts, and outline the unresolved concerns ahead.

The talk will also explore what individuals can do next, from understanding their rights to participating in elections that will shape the future of this administration and our country. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The October 18, 2025 “No Kings Day” protest in Washington D.C. (Photo by Geoff Livingston / Wikimedia Commons.)

This talk has completely sold out in advance and no door tickets will be available.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Ballistic Missile Defense Question,” on the operation of a controversial defense system and the debate over its use, with Dean Wilkening, a physicist and defense system researcher formerly at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford University’s Center for International Security, and the RAND Corporation.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-ballistic-missile .]

Ballistic missile defense has been a contentious political issue in the United States, especially after President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 speech calling for a “Star Wars” style barrier to Soviet nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defense is also among the most expensive items in the Pentagon budget for research, development, test and evaluation, with funding estimated at $10.6 billion in 2026.

Most recently, ballistic missiles have been making headlines as a result of Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack against Israel, Russia’s ballistic missile attacks against Ukraine, and President Trump’s call for America to be defended by a “Golden Dome” similar to Israel’s Iron Dome system.

But is relying on ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems practical and wise?

Hear that question tackled by Dean Wilkening, who recently retired from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, has spent much of his life studying a range of defense matters such as hypersonic weapons and ballistic missile defense, and who has published extensively and advised national boards and government agencies on his findings.

Dr. Wilkening will discuss the technology underlying BMD systems, which seek to use precision guided munitions to essentially “hit a bullet with a bullet” to thwart attacks. You’ll learn about the support systems, including sensors and command and control systems, critical to making it all work.

Then he’ll give an overview of the debate over ballistic missile defense systems, typically split along partisan lines. We’ll look at the evolving missile threat, which includes both conventional and nuclear ballistic missiles as well as hypersonic weapons, and the potential for armed conflict with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Dr. Wilkening will look at whether BMD systems meet the test of working technically, being able to survive attack, and being cost-effective at the margins. Finally, he’ll take on the big-picture question of whether ballistic missile defense is inherently “destabilizing.” Do they stimulate arms races? Do they actually make nuclear war more likely? (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A 2019 U.S. Army test of patriot missiles. (U.S. Department of Defense photo.)